


Breaking the Cycle

by Impala_Chick



Category: DC Extended Universe, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Always a Girl Clark, F/M, Groundhog Day, Pining, Post-Justice League (2017), Rule 63, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-28 06:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20421569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impala_Chick/pseuds/Impala_Chick
Summary: Clara Kent finds a strange object in Metropolis, and she and Bruce immediately butt heads. The object doesn't appear to be much of a threat until Bruce finds himself reliving the same day over and over.





	Breaking the Cycle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [salazarastark (niewanyin)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/niewanyin/gifts).

Bruce couldn’t make heads or tales of the unusual object currently sitting in the Bat cave. It had six legs and an impenetrable exoskeleton. It also had two long antennae but no eyes or any other orifices visible. Bruce had already tried using an X-ray to take a look inside, but the machine had fritzed out before he’d been able to capture a single image. 

He and the League had been out and about in Metropolis because Bruce’s grid tracker flagged a huge energy spike that rippled through downtown and subsequently caused a city-wide power outage. No cause could be detected until Clara spotted the object that Bruce was currently poking and prodding at in the cave.

Once she’d found it, a huge argument had erupted. Clara had insisted that Bruce let her put it in the Kryptonian ship, to see if the ship recognized it. But that solution wasn’t good enough for Bruce. If this thing could cause city-wide power outages, it was dangerous. And Bruce wanted to study it, understand it, and ultimately disable it. He didn’t want to risk the ship drawing from its power. Clara had fired back that it was likely alien and therefore impossible for Bruce to understand on his own.

Clara’s steel blue eyes had been fierce and her gaze had been unflinching, and Bruce was reminded of why he’d feared her at first. But before he knew her, Bruce had only seen sheer, unstoppable strength. Now he knew her kind, quiet mercy too. The contradiction was confusing, especially considering Bruce knew that if Clara really wanted to take the object away from Bruce and back to the ship she could have done it. But she didn’t.

Instead the League had discussed it and Arthur and Barry had agreed with Bruce. Diana didn’t want to take sides but she wisely pointed out that after Bruce had a look at it, Clara could take it to the ship. Diana and Clara had a certain kinship that Bruce was excluded from, but Bruce figured that had more to do with their shared strength than their shared gender.

Bruce set aside his musings and pulled out the spear of shining green kryptonite from his lockbox deep within the cave. After Doomsday, Bruce couldn’t help but see the necessity of keeping it around for emergencies.

That didn’t stop him from dreading the day Clara found out what he was hiding.

There was still blood crusted on it. Clara’s blood. Bruce clearly remembered the sight of her back and the way the spear had protruded obscenely from her body. He remembered falling to his knees, the air punched from his lungs. And he remembered thinking that the sight before him was completely impossible, unfathomable. Unforgettable. 

Even after she came back to life, and they’d defeated Steppenwolf together and formed the league, something about Clara’s death still haunted him. She’d never so much as brought it up to Bruce, which somehow made it worse.

He shook himself to clear the image of Clara’s dead body, lowered his goggles and then carefully touched the edge of the spear to the object’s exo-skeleton. 

He had enough presence of mind to think _shit, she might have been right_ before everything went dark.

\----

He woke with a start. He lurched up and grabbed his chest, happy to discover that his body seemed mostly intact. And then as he looked around, he realized he was in his own bed at the lake house. He threw the comforter off of his legs, and got out of bed. He glanced at the small black digital clock on his bedside table. 7:05 A.M. He must have slept through the night, because when he got up to get out the Kryptonite spear it had been 9:16 P.M.

Maybe Alfred found him passed out and carried him upstairs to his bed. It wouldn’t have been the first time. 

He rushed down the stairs, only to find Alfred already in the kitchen. There was a plate with an english muffin on it on the bar. Bruce raised an eyebrow, because that was exactly what Alfred had done for him the previous morning. Alfred didn’t always make breakfast for him and Bruce wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he didn’t ask about the food.

“Did you carry me up the stairs last night?” Bruce asked as he sat down at his barstool. 

“What? No, Master Wayne. Last night you actually went to sleep in your own bed, near as I can tell.” Alfredy cracked a smile as he turned back to the coffee pot. “Coffee?”

“Sure,” Bruce said, confused. “So did you see me in the cave? Did you wake me up?”

Alfred handed him a steaming mug of coffee, and then crossed his arms and rested his hip against the counter. 

“Master Wayne, you don’t remember last night? You had a Board meeting in the afternoon, and then you retired early. Did you drink last night?” Alfred looked genuinely concerned now. 

“The board meeting was two days ago, Alfred. Today is Sunday.” Bruce reached for the tablet on the bar.

“I’m afraid it’s Saturday, Master Wayne.”

Alfred was right, according to Bruce’s tablet. Which made absolutely no sense.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Alfred commented, watching Bruce intently. 

“Something has happened. It’s supposed to be Sunday.” Bruce felt his chest constricting as a wave of nausea washed over him. He hurried down to the batcave, still in his sweatpants. The object was not where he last saw it, on his worktable. He flung open every closet and drawer, but could not find it. He checked the lockbox, but the Kryptonite spear was still inside. 

Either someone or something was playing an elaborate hoax on him, he was stuck in some sort of faked simulation, or he had inadvertently traveled through time. Bruce dove into research, hoping to find some evidence to support any of the most likely theories.

The League alarms started to blare right at 12:22, the same time they had the previous day, and Bruce put on his comm to hear Clara’s familiar voice.

“Suit up, everyone. I’ll see you in Metropolis.”

It’s what she’d said last time.

The patrol went much quicker because Bruce dropped several hints about where Clara should look. And after she picked up the mysterious item, they all ended up back in the conference room. Bruce sat at the head of the table, still in the Batsuit. Clara sat at the other end, drumming her fingers against the tabletop. 

The only difference this time was that Bruce was even more vehement about taking the thing to the cave. 

“Look, Clara. We don’t even know if it’s Kryptonian or not. I just have some very specific tests I want to try,” Bruce said. He noticed Barry and Arthur nodding along with him, but he already knew there was only one person he needed to convince. 

She shook her head and crossed her arms over the supersuit, her lips pursed as she stared at Bruce from across the conference room. 

“Are you just doing this to be contrary?” Clara asked. Bruce kept his expression neutral, but he was surprised by her glib tone. She hadn’t said that the previous time.

“Of course not. I believe that this is the right course of action,” Bruce explained calmly. 

“Well it seems like you’re being a bit paternalistic. I am the closest thing to an alien expert we’ve got and this thing is not human. What do you think, Diana?”

Clara cocked her head towards Wonder Woman. Everyone listened as Diana outlined a compromise that Bruce already knew Clara would agree to. Bruce had always thought of Diana and Clara as distinctly different women, but seeing them sit side by side in their uniforms made their differences more pronounced. 

Clara’s hair was short and always pulled back while on a mission, unlike Diana. Her super suit completely covered her in red and blue, whereas Diana’s seemed much more feminine because of the exposed skin. The boots Clara wore made her an inch taller than Bruce. Her height and her visible muscle structure made her slightly intimidating, and those traits where the reason he’d first feared her. 

Now that he knew her kindness and her humanity, the physical traits took on a whole new appeal that Bruce couldn’t deny.

“Fine,” Clara said, pulling Bruce from his musing. “But I don’t like it.”

She gave Bruce an assessing look and then picked up the object and handed it to Bruce.

“I can go down with you to the cave, if you want. Be an extra set of eyes,” Clara offered. Bruce had already known she was going to offer, and he didn’t change his answer.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he grumbled as he took the object from her.

He hurried downstairs, eager to try again. Every good experiment had to have a control. He immediately took the Kryptonite spear from the lockbox and approached the object on his worktable.

And then woke up in his bed again. At 7:05 A.M.

_Fuck_, he swore as he climbed out of bed. The last memory he had was considering whether to turn the creature over. He was pretty certain he hadn’t even touched it with the Kryptonite. Maybe it could sense its presence and had reacted accordingly. But that would mean that it was sentient. 

Bruce hurried downstairs, waved off Alfred’s offer for food, suited up, and went out to Metropolis without waiting for the alarm.

The creature was not where they had found it the previous day. Which meant someone moved it, or it could move itself. 

He stood watch over the spot, waiting for something to happen. At 12:22, a visible blackout rolled through Metropolis as billboards and traffic lights winked out. The rest of the league showed up soon after that, and the object appeared right where Clara had found it before.

It seemed like there had been no outside interference, unless someone had moved too fast for Bruce to see. 

The same argument erupted in the conference room afterwards, so Bruce cut to the chase rather quickly.

“Clara, I’m on the verge of discovering something. Everyone else agrees, just let me work with it for a few hours.” Bruce’s palms were pressed against the big hardwood table as he spoke. Clara was standing, but she leaned forward over her end of the table to glare at Bruce.

“How do you know everyone agrees?” She asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. 

Bruce realized he’d skipped over too much of the previous day’s conversation, but it was too late. Clara must have noticed the flicker of regret on his face, because she walked slowly towards Bruce with her arms crossed. Her red cape fluttered as she passed under the air conditioning vent, and Bruce was reminded of just how much power she held over him. Even just a few words from her were enough to make his blood boil with anger or make his skin tingle with curiosity. He gulped.

“You seem like you know something.” She stared him down, but Bruce didn’t flinch. Clara glanced around the room, meeting each of the League member’s eyes.

“But seeing as everyone looks to be in agreement already, I won’t stand in your way,” she said. And then she stepped away from Bruce, her shoulders hunched forward a bit like she was trying to appear smaller or less intimidating. Bruce had seen her do it before, in civilian clothes. But seeing her do that in front of the League, in her superman suit, felt odd. 

Bruce ignored the weird sense of foreboding that had settled in his gut and went down to the cave with the creature anyway. He had barely taken a few steps towards the lockbox, but the next thing he remembered was waking up in his own bed. At 7:05 A.M on Saturday.

\----

He was going to have to get Clara to stand watch with him in order to make sure no one of superspeed was manipulating the unknown object.

Which meant he was going to have to tell her at least a bit about what was going on.

Bruce showed up to her apartment about an hour and a half before the League alert would go off. She answered the door in a faded blue flannel button-up, ripped skinny jeans, and white socks with bunny ears on them. 

She tucked a bit of hair behind her ear and gestured for Bruce to come in. Bruce didn’t even hear what she said as he followed her inside, because he kept glancing down at her goddamn bunny socks. Bruce had never seen her dressed so casually, or so feminine. Her layers hid the definition of her arm muscles, but her golden collar bones were on display. The curve of her ass looked just as shapely and inviting in those jeans as it did in her suit. 

She still seemed larger than life to him, but she was soft around the edges. Her shoulders were hunched a bit as she seemed to lean into herself, making her look shorter than she was. She had her glasses on, and she pushed them up the bridge of her nose as she looked at Bruce. She seemed demure and soft in a way she never was with the League. Maybe this is what it meant to be Clara Kent, reporter.

Bruce cleared his throat. 

“I, uh. Need your help. There’s going to be a mission later today. And I can’t tell you how I know, but we have to keep an eye out for a foreign object.”

Clara looked at him with a smirk on her face, her hand on her hip.

“Are you hiding the ball because you think I can’t handle it, or because you don’t want me to handle it?” She spoke directly and confidently, her chin in the air as she waited for an answer. She squared her shoulders, and she suddenly looked much more like Superman than she had a moment ago.

Bruce sighed, not sure why he thought this would go any differently. He wondered if there would ever come a day where they didn’t have to be so defensive with each other. 

“I’ve lived this day before,” Bruce said. He was out of other options, and the mission should always be priority. So he told her. “I’ve lived this day a few times and I always end up right back where I started. I think the object is alien.”

Clara’s eyes widened and Bruce braced himself for the disbelief and the questions he thought for sure would follow. 

But she surprised him. 

“I believe you, Bruce.” She touched his arm gently, squeezed his bicep once, and then in the blink of an eye she had the super suit on.

Bruce had them wait on a rooftop overlooking where he knew the object would eventually appear. When the League alarm went off, Clara looked over at him with a question in her eyes and then went back to staring.

A few minutes later she exhaled sharply. 

“It arrived. It’s definitely alien. Maybe Kryptonian. It can fly,” Clara said as she pointed down at the object. And then she jumped over the ledge to retrieve it. 

Bruce felt foolish. He’d lost track of how many times he’d relived the day, and the whole time Clara could have seen the object arrive. 

Once they got back to the League conference room, Bruce sat back in his chair and let Clara speak first. And then he agreed with her suggestion.

She stared at him across the conference table with one eyebrow arched. 

“You don’t have anything to add?” She asked, her voice light and teasing. 

Bruce shook his head. “I just request that I go with you to the ship. To see what happens.”

Clara nodded. “Fine. But we leave now.”

Bruce watched her pick up the object and walk out of the room with her cape fluttering behind her. 

“But you’re driving!” She called from over her shoulder. He couldn’t help but smile as he got up from the table, but he quickly tamped it down when he noticed Diana and Arthur looking at him curiously.

As Bruce started up the new and improved batmobile, he realized that Clara had never ridden in it before. 

“This probably doesn’t compare to actually flying, but this is as close as I get,” Bruce said before she pushed the pedal to the floor. 

Clara grinned at him with that easy midwestern smile and Bruce turned away to focus on the road. And not on her eyes, or her lips, or her broad shoulders, or the curve of her breasts.

They made it to the ship without incident, and Bruce dutifully followed Clara inside. Once his foot passed over the threshold, he felt himself seize up with panic. But Bruce looked down at his empty hands, and then he looked up at Clara striding confidently forward with her shoulders back and her cape fluttering, and he was reassured that this time there was nothing to fear. He was only looking for truth here, not miracles. 

And Clara was alive and well. 

Clara called on Jor-El, and his hologram materialized in front of her. Bruce stayed slightly back from them, feeling awkward. It was creepy how the hologram kept perfectly still, making it obvious that he wasn’t real. The thick dark hair, the strong outline of his jaw, and his piercing blue eyes made the family resemblance obvious, though. 

“Do you know what this is?” Clara held up the object and the Jor-El hologram tipped his head forward to look. 

The hologram nodded, and then looked right at Bruce. His unwavering gaze made the hairs on the back of Bruce’s neck stand up. The way Jor-El had looked at him, it seemed that he knew what Bruce was trying to hide.

“It’s a time titan beetle. It feeds off of energy. And it can manipulate time,” Jor-El said flatly. Bruce let out a sharp exhale, relieved that the hologram had stuck to answering Clara’s question.

“Well, that makes sense. Can we kill it?” Clara asked. 

“Yes, with Kryptonite. But it can also be put in stasis. In the holding chamber.”

A flat metal panel of the ship slid open to reveal a dark black box. Clara glanced over at Bruce. He debated asking to take it back to the cave, considering he wasn’t sure if they could trust Jor-El. He also wanted to be rid of the thing, and getting out from under Jor-El’s assessing gaze would be an added bonus. This seemed like a good enough plan, for the moment. 

Eventually he nodded, and Clara put the beetle inside the box.

As soon as she let go, the whole ship seemed to vibrate with tension. It wasn’t enough to knock Bruce off his feet, but he did have to readjust his stance. 

“He’s threatened it with Kryptonite.” Jor-El’s voice boomed like a loudspeaker. Bruce understood alien anger when he heard it. Bruce was frighteningly unnerved because of how judgemental he’d sounded. 

It was time to tell the truth. Not because he cared about what the ship thought of him, but because he knew Clara deserved that much. 

“What did you do?” She asked as she turned around, her voice like steel. 

“I thought I might be able to open it with the spear.” Bruce felt so small, but he didn’t shrink away from her.

At his words, she sucked in a breath and took a step away from him as if she’d been punched.

“The Kryptonite spear? Why did you keep it? Why didn’t you tell me?” She looked at him as if he was a complete stranger, and maybe he was. He’d never opened up about anything that had to do with his personal feelings. They’d barely sustained a conversation that didn’t have to do with League business. He suddenly hated himself for keeping her at arm’s length. She might never forgive him.

“In case we face a threat like that again, I have to keep it. But I also keep it because I feel guilty,” Bruce admitted. 

Her gaze was distant and confused. She was watching him and reassessing him, and he felt like he was a specimen in a museum.

“I don’t understand you, Bruce. We’re teammates. We’re supposed to trust each other,” Clara finally said as she wrapped her arms around herself. Bruce was reminded of how she’d looked in her own living room. She was more alien this way than she was in the suit, Bruce realized. 

Bruce reached out his hand, but she flinched away. Bruce felt his heart shatter into a million pieces. He nearly fell to his knees because of how cold the look was that she leveled at him. 

“Please, let me fix this.” Bruce’s voice was hoarse as he looked up at her. He wished he’d never hidden such a huge secret from her. He wished he had realized earlier just how she was to him. Most of all, he wished she would stop looking at him like _that_. Like he was someone unworthy of her trust.

And then he blinked, and she was gone. He was back in his bed, and it was 7:05 AM on Saturday.

Bruce was relieved. He immediately reached over to his bedside table and dialed Clara’s number.

“We need to talk,” he said. 

“League business?” She asked worriedly. He’d probably woken her up.

“Not quite,” he admitted softly. 

“Oh.” She paused and took a deep breath as if to gather herself. Bruce waited, worried that she’d brush him off. “I’ll be right over.”

Bruce released the breath he was holding. 

He wasn’t going to waste his chance this time. He would tell her everything. And then they’d lock that damn beetle in the box before it got any other bright ideas.


End file.
